Desiree Davila Is Hurting

Jul 20, 2012

By Peter Gambaccini

Photo by Victah Sailer

Desiree Davila, the women’s runner-up at the U.S. Olympic Trials, has been struggling with a right hip flexor tendon injury as she prepares

for her marathon at the London Olympic on August 5. "It’s been a rough segment trainingwise," says Davila’s coach, Kevin Hanson. "I’m trying to get her healthy enough to get her to the starting line." Davila is currently "doing okay on the Alter-G," which makes lower impact running possible, but she’s having painful difficulty on solid ground.We had reached out to Davila, the 2011 Boston Marathon runner-up in 2:22:38, for one of our “Brief Chats,” a request which she always willingly fulfills. But this time, she deflected the query to Hanson who, with his brother Keith, heads up the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project in Michigan. Candidly, Hanson confided "we’re getting closer here [to the race date], and we’re getting less and less confident" that Davila will be able to run pain-free in London.Might Davila withdraw from the marathon? "I don’t see that as a possibility right now. We haven’t gotten to that point yet," states Hanson, adding "if she opts not to [race], it will not happen until she’s on hard surfaces in London" in the days before the race. Hanson stresses "we're trying to be ethically correct," but there's no real possibility of an alternate stepping in any case. Fourth and fifth place Marathon Trials finishers Amy Hastings and Janet Bawcom are firmly committed to the Olympic 10,000-meter run, which is on August 3, and other key top Trials finishers are injured.Kevin Hanson is keen on "having her [Davila] be proud of the fact she’s an Olympian” and having her enjoy everything that goes with that experience in London. But he hastens to add that Davila, who’s "equally as tough mentally and physically," is also "not one who finds moral victories" in anything other than actual victory. According to Hanson, Davila was a bit baffled by the huge fuss made over her very fast and very close second place finish in Boston in 2010. "She sees herself as 'first loser,'" he tells us.

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